Note 19 — HISTORICAL RECORD

Calpé, in the south of Spain, and Abyla, on the opposite coast of Africa (about eighteen miles distant), were celebrated as the Pillars of Hercules; and, according to heathen mythology, these two mountains were united, until that hero separated them, and made a communication between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Calpé received the present designation of Gibraltar from the Arabic “Gib-el-Tarif,” or “Mountain of Tarif,” being the spot where that Moorish chieftain landed on his invasion of Spain in the year 711. The device of the “Castle and Key,” the present arms of Gibraltar, was given by Henry IV., King of Castile, upon his capturing the place from the King of Granada in 1462, in allusion to its being considered as the key to the Mediterranean.